Dragonfang by Paul Collins Read Free Book Online Page B

of binding, and a blue ribbon of energy entangled the nearest man’s legs. He fell with a yelp. The other hurdled a fallen chair and kept coming. His hand drove down past his knee for an underhand throw and Jelindel instinctively wove her hips aside as the man’s axe left his hand. The axehead slammed into a barrel a nose-length from her ribs.
    A second later his momentum carried him into her. All Zimak’s kick-fist training came to her rescue. Her right hand grasped the man’s crotch while her left his jerkin, then she rolled him over herself and sent him flying into the wall.
    Jelindel stepped back in fighting pose: right hand extended, left knife hand several inches from her hip, right leg forward and body weight resting on her left leg. A glance told her that no one had even witnessed her own fracas. The tavern’s patrons were still enjoying the main fight. The town constables would arrive at any moment, and taverns in the throes of a brawl were not a good place to be when the constabulary arrived.
    Jelindel looked down at the crumpled body beside her, then at the man she had ensnared. The spell would keep him bound for at least a hundred heartbeats.
    She made good her escape among the slimy cobbled alleyways of D’loom. And knew her life here, at least for the time being, was at an end. She spent the rest of the night and much of the next day on watch in a disused warehouse overlooking the docklands.
    Now she watched several sailors who were in turn watching a group of women fussing around a boy who was carrying a rollpack almost as big as himself. First time at sea, she thought. He will return as an adult, and tell his mother, brothers and sisters of adventures and wonders, and some may even be true. Other things he will not tell them, tales of picking weevils out of biscuits, scurvy, beatings for the slightest mistake, smashed bodies of men fallen from the rigging, and sharks that gathered as if they could sense an accident.
    There was nobody to see Jelindel off. She had been orphaned some time ago, and had found that a boy’s identity made life a lot easier than would be the case for a lone girl. No girl could walk alone in D’loom, and the only women who did not depend on men were either in religious orders or in houses where several women supported each other.
    A ship’s bell began to ring, heralding the turn of the tide in a half hour. The boy walked clear of the circle of robes, scented skin, veils and excited, encouraging voices. He waved a last farewell as he strutted along the pier. It was lined with a double row of sailors, but he did not realise that this was a potential problem. The usual crew, Jelindel thought idly, pausing to watch. She had sailed with most of them on previous journeys, and had earned their respect the hard way.
    Jelindel quickened her pace, passing the group of women and closing in on the boy. She had cut her hair to collar length that morning. The boy’s hair was longer than hers, and he wore a jacket, tunic and trousers that the girls of his family had probably been sewing for weeks. Oil of roses from some uptown laundry was on the air.
    ‘Tch, Jenza, I smell perfume,’ bawled a Hamarian, pointing to the approaching boy.
    ‘No women allowed aboard ship, bad luck it be,’ his companion shouted.
    The boy stopped and the sailor named Jenza reached out for him. Jelindel’s brass-topped cane cracked down on his wrist. Before his companion could react, Jelindel thrust her cane into his stomach, then she turned as a huge Baltorian charged her. She held out her cane with both hands seemingly in supplication. Her assailant foolishly seized it whereupon she pulled and fell backwards. Jelindel rammed a foot to his stomach as she went down and he sailed over her, crashing into four Nerrissians and skittling them over the edge of the pier and into the water.
    One of the attackers failed to recognise techniques employed by black-band Siluvian kick-fist masters. He slashed a knife at